Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Margaret Rose Very funny feel-good film. Follows a gay young man's experience of life in high school and the various problems that comes with adolescence and being a transfer student. Contains bullying, drag and lots of comedy. Chance Marquis is a new transfer student at Brickland High. As well as becoming the school's bully no.1 target, he strives to find his identity through visiting a gay drag club and crushing on his next door neighbour. After numerous mishaps Chance realises that he must stick to his own motto : expressing one's individualism, even if it means completely stepping out of his comfort zone. I found this film brilliant :) I love Chance's cocky attitude and eccentric personality; it adds life to the film. Chance's friends add humour to the film and the setting is perfect. Needless to say the acting is sublime.

johannes2000-1 For the most part I liked this movie. Surely, every movie with a positive attitude towards being gay is an asset! And when it's an entertaining, well-acted and witty movie like this one, it's even better. Thank god gay-themed movies seem to come out off their art-house closets more and more to boldly step into the limelight of mainstream movies. See for instance the "Eating-Out" and the "This is not a gay movie" sequences. Maybe you can question their artistic merits and maybe even their contribution to gay integration (aren't they a bit too much stereotyping?!), but you cannot deny that they succeed in bringing gay characters and gay lifestyle to an equal level as the forever dominating straight counterparts. TCOC is basically a fine and fun movie. Tad Hilgenbrink does a great job and is totally convincing as Chance, the young, intelligent gay high school kid that has decided to be true to his gay and somewhat extravagant self in whatever circumstances he finds himself, which provokes all kinds of strong reactions from people around him, like his teachers, his father and some bullying high school jocks. TH is not a stunner (that part fell to Brett Chukerman as Chance's neighbor and friend), but he's good-looking enough in a sort of unobtrusive way. And the character he plays, Chance, is very cute in his attempts to act snubby, cynical, ad-libbing and world-wise as any self-respecting queen would be, while bravely taking the punches that this behaviour evokes. TH has a great screen presence, and he sure knows how to use his facial expressions - see for instance the scene where he watches (or fancies?) his gorgeous neighbor doing a striptease, it's really priceless! I saw TH in the umptieth rip-off of American Pie: "Band Camp", where he's equally convincing as a sex-craving straight teenage kid, I found him in Band Camp balancing on the brink of obnoxious, which is a compliment since that's exactly what he had to play (he even treated us to some impressive bare buttocks shots in that movie!), but in the end of that movie he was allowed to show his more serious and endearing side which forecasted his acting in TCOC. I must grant TH his courage to take on this totally contrary part, which not only meant playing a very out and open gay guy, but also includes a drag-queen act and in the end a long and luxurious gay kiss. And I also grant him his fine balanced approach of playing a gay character: not stereotyped at all, but putting it all in the the subtle gestures and the attitude and the way of talking, it made his being gay all the more believable and acceptable.There is much to laugh about in this movie, but here I did have some reservations too. Apart from the main character and the struggles with his personal problems, the rest of the script and the supporting characters are unfortunately a bit shallow. Curiously enough there are all these interesting and promising premises, with which nothing much is done. For instance, this high school seems to be somewhere in Europe, but apart from some people having a weird accent it didn't serve any purpose. Chance's father is a widowed military-man, who evidently seriously tries to cope with his strange son, but until the last few minutes he only stays a caricature. The dorky schoolfriend Hank is so unrealistically stupid that it makes your teeth ache, and the colossal female head of the school is equally over the top; both have a lot of scenes that are clearly meant to be hilarious but in my opinion fell rather flat. The drag-queens bring in some fine performances, but their talk with Chance in the dressing room could have been so much more interesting as a stimulus AND a warning of where this path in life can lead to; here they just bicker among themselves and Chance just awes their ad-libbing skills.The only well evolved secondary story-line was that of the (straight?) neighbor guy Levi who becomes friends with Chance but also belongs to the "enemy" jock's camp, and eventually has to choose. I liked the mature way in which Chance dealt with this: not with anger or with changing his behaviour to fit in better, but just by staying true to himself. It's this attitude that eventually wins his buddy over and I think it sums up the message of this movie: in order to fit in it's not always necessary to do concessions, just start with opening-up to each other and respecting each others personality and peculiarities. It sounds so cliché, but every new day it proves to be the most difficult thing ever!

jtapley-2 I was prepared to be disappointed with The Curiosity of Chance - but fortunately it does not follow the exact pattern laid out in the short blurb about the movie and the storyline is actually more interesting and clever! This is NOT a coming out story. Chance IS out. This is more of a "coming to his own" type of scenario. Fortunately, he does not recruit the hodge-podge of characters to get revenge on the bully as we are led to believe -- instead, it is his friends who do so just because that's what real friends do. The acting is solid - giving us quirky characters with interesting stories and a bit of mystery. Tad Hilgenbrinck is perfectly cast as the eccentric Chance Marquis - giving a wonderful Willie Wonka quirkiness to the character. He is very much like a few people I have met in my life - and I could readily identify with him. Pieter Van Nieuwenhuyze couldn't be better as the rather odd sidekick photographer friend Hank Hudson. In fact, Pieter has some of the funnier lines of the movie - which his delivery of made even funnier. And Aldevina da Silva as Twyla Tiller is another wise casting move - bringing us a beautiful film image of the female friend that almost every gay boy has in high school - tough, sarcastic and deeply loyal and loving. Not to be left out is the solid, if understated, performance of Brett Chukerman as Levi Sparks - the soccer star/next door neighbor/amazingly empathetic and insightful jock that is in every movie of this ilk but almost does not exist in real life. However, Brett makes this character believable - with his subtle style, perfect facial expressions to match each scenario and his dream that ultimately has nothing to do with football. I immediately liked this character - just as I did the other main characters.The peripheral characters are colorful, odd, and obviously have deeper stories that are only hinted at but never totally, or in some cases even slightly divulged. Magali Uytterhaegen as the Vice Principal is somewhat a stereotypical character but as the movie progresses toward it's obvious conclusion you begin to understand that she seems to really get it and actually cares about Chance. The fact that we know little about her - other than Twyla's idea that she is transsexual and that she inexplicably smells - adds to her mystique. Chris Mulkey as the father (Sir) is well played. One senses from the beginning that while he is extreme military that he is not necessarily an extreme disciplinarian - there is a sense that he cares even if he is unsure how to manifest that feeling. He, in the end, is the father every struggling gay kid wants to find out he/she really has.The Battle of the Bands conclusion is basically formula movie-making . . . however, the addition of the drag queens (which, by the way, were some of the best and most realistic drag queens I've seen in a movie in a long time) was, while expected, quite delightful. The final scene with the kiss was sweet while leaving the mystery of whether it was real or fantasy. This might be a new entry in my list of favorite gay-themed movies. Not as much for the story as for the acting and the solid directing for a low-budget indie film. Bravo to Writer/Director Russell P. Marleau for making the most of a limited budget. And double bravos to whomever did the casting for this movie - well done!I still want to know what was in Hank's case.

arizona-philm-phan .......gratuitous (although it is a good lip-lock).While this film doesn't merit a lot of comment, here're just a few observations---It's cute, it's innocuous and it's in no way innovative. What it does do is reinforce---in a fun way---the principles of standing up for oneself, appreciating the friends one does have and, most importantly, keeping hope (re: that last 2-person scene in this movie).This definitely will appeal to the high school crowd (what's really going' on here---is this just a little different take on the "High School Musical" theme?).Just a thought or two about our leads---Hilgenbrink: a little "one-note" in his come-across (but at only age 23 or so when shooting, and with not much in past filmed performances, he has the greater potential of the two male leads) // Chuckerman: just because you're cute doesn't mean you can act (gonna get in trouble for that one---from the girls, maybe the boys) and gave a rather wooden performance (he was much better at "dragging us into the picture" with his performance in the year 2000 Short: "Crush"). Do have to allow him this, though---the facial expression he gives us, while walking away after "the kiss," was a priceless moment // Aldevina Da Silva's work here was tippy-top above the rest. If there's an award for this sort of thing, it belongs to her.***If you want something better in the gay teenager mode, try one of these: "C.R.A.Z.Y" // "Summer Storm" // "The Mudge Boy" // "The Last Day"****